Writing Task 2 - Sample 8: Age and Education

Topic: Some people believe that it is better for young people to begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than secondary school. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

Learning a foreign language such as English is increasingly becoming necessary and children are learning at younger ages than in the past, beginning in primary school. In my opinion, it is better for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than secondary school.

It's is very easy for young children to learn a new language because they absorb new ideas quickly and learn new skills faster than older ones. If they start learning a foreign language at an early age, they can get used to it and have more time to practice. Also, they can pronounce words correctly because they do not have a first language interference like adults typically do. Although in common knowledge, people believe primary school students are too young to learn a foreign language as they may get bored in the lesson and find it unnecessary, it all depends on the way they are taught. We can try to make the lesson interesting to attract the children to pay attention more and enjoy it.

Some people claim that secondary school students can make better progress at learning foreign languages like English. Since they are older, they can focus more on their study and can get better results. But at school, they have more subjects to learn and work to do so they have difficulties in dividing their time to suit with their learning. As a result, although they are more mature, they still cannot learn foreign languages as easily as primary school students. People may also say students in secondary school can differentiate their mother tongue from the foreign language but there is no evidence for that statement. On the contrary, because they start learning at such a late time, they will mix up with their mother tongue and their pronunciation will be incorrect. It is also very hard for them to get used this new language.

In conclusion, learning a foreign language at primary school has more advantages than learning at secondary school. 

(333 words) - This is a very good sample written by student Han Dinh (14 years old) at Pathways (with assistance from her 1-1 teacher)

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